You’re in Japan at the moment, what are you up to there? How did this opportunity happen? Is this part of your PhD or contributing to it?I’m in Japan as a research exchange student at Tokyo University of the Arts (known colloquially as “Geidai”). I have strong connections to Japan, and when it became apparent that I needed to return to Japan to carry out a collaborative rephotography project for my study, I was looking for ways to go back. Professor Toshio Watanabe at Chelsea College of Arts put me in touch with professors at Geidai as part of means to re-establish an exchange agreement, which I am hugely thankful for.

Meet Dr Sheena Calvert, Contextual Studies Coordinator at Camberwell College of Arts and Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins. She is one of the organisers of the Book and Human Debate as part of The Way We Live Now The AHRC 10th Anniversary Debates 2015-2016 taking place at CSM in mid-December 2015. Here she talks about her expectations of the Debate and why the team have invited the selected speakers…

A team at the University of the Arts London, led by Dr Athanasios Velios, is at the front line of a high-tech battle of brains.

They are developing new tools, software and systems to help academic researchers use and manage research data thanks to support and funding from Jisc, a charity that aims to develop digital solutions to improve education and research.

Athanasios is working alongside Sebastian Faubel and Moritz Ebril from Semiodesk, a software development company in Germany, on a project called Artivity which aims to capture, when and how artists are influenced while they are producing their creative work.

We are pleased to announce that 2014-15 has been an extremely successful year for the research degree (Mphil/PhD) students at University of the Arts London. 25 graduated, 23 passed their confirmation and 31 students registered. Congratulations to you all!

Registration usually happens in the 1st year of PhD study, students have to complete an Application for Registration Form, which consists of:

an outline of your proposed project (not more than 1000 words in length) plus an indicative bibliography and a work plan

Meet Dr Iris Garrelfs, Iris was awarded her PhD this year in Sound Art from LCC. In this article she shares her experience as a research student at UAL, how she built communities and learnt to discuss the theories behind her practice. She has recently been nominated for the British Composer Awards.

What was your awarded PhD title? Did it change much along the way?

Oh yes it did! The title I started out with was:Cross breeding art: the impact of cross-platform arts practice on soundart at the beginning of the 21st century.

The title that I ended up using reads:From inputs to outputs: an investigation of process in sound art practice.

In between I came up with quite a few variants on the theme, each highlighting slightly different aspects of my research. To be honest, I didn’t decide which one to go with until a couple of weeks before submitting. What swayed me in the end was keeping the title simple.

“What makes new information and communications technologies so economically powerful?

The answer is that their impacts are felt everywhere. Their persuasiveness is why economists consider them one of a small number of ‘general purpose technologies’ – like steam power and electricity – that change entire economic growth trajectories in industries that use them”.

F.I.R.E (Fashion, Innovation, Research, Evolution) has been awarded a second round of funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to develop a new, online fashion research portal, which you can become part of.

Principal Investigator, Professor Sandy Black and the FIRE team have worked hard to evolve the platform so that it is a space where academic researchers can connect with the UK’s designer fashion industry. We have held workshops with the fashion academic and designer community to establish the needs and desires for this platform so that it is most useful and inspiring.

We would love you to get involved and sign up to FIRE when we launch – here is a selection of what the platform has to offer:

Find collaborators for projects and funding schemes

Get information on new manufacturing techniques and technology

Read relevant fashion research content and case studies

Find relevant businesses and research expertise

Participate in network events and workshops exclusive to FIRE

Keep an eye out in October for the new F.I.R.E online platform – and thank you to those who have already be involved!

Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London, is delighted to be hosting ‘Colour, Emotion, Non-Figuration: John Hoyland Revisited’ Symposium. Coinciding with a major exhibition of Hoyland’s paintings at Damien Hirst’s newly opened Newport Street Gallery, the day will explore Hoyland’s art and times, while opening his painting up to new perspectives and the peculiar pressures of the ‘expanded field’ in which art now operates. The day, scheduled for February 2016, welcomes approaches beyond the traditionally academic, and will include contributions and discussion between artists, art historians and writers.

Outlines (up to 300 words) of short presentations are invited. Presentations could focus directly on Hoyland and discuss the ideas and forces which shaped him as an artist, or they could examine contexts in which he and his contemporaries worked. We are also keen to see proposals which use Hoyland’s art to shed light on the condition of painting today, which reflect his role as an art teacher, or which respond to his position as something of an outsider or renegade in relation to the art establishment.

Submissions are invited which explore one or more of the following themes:

Colour and emotion in abstract art

Making painting and thinking painting: between sketchbook and studio

Materiality in sculpture and painting

Abstract, abstraction, non-figuration

We would like to see proposals that concisely get to the heart of their subject. They do not have to be academic, and could take the form of artist’s talks, performances or experimental events. We would also welcome proposals for group discussions. Paintings by Hoyland will be loaned by the estate, so there will be the opportunity for presentations to take place in front of the specific paintings to which they refer.